SeaIntel says big ships a challenge in Black Sea

Friday, August 09, 2013

SeaIntel Maritime Analysis said Black Sea ports, in the near future, most likely will not experience 10,000-TEU vessels docking, as the ports are not prepared and productivity is too low.
"With the current overcapacity in the container industry and the large influx of new 10,000 TEU-vessels in the coming years, the carriers are continually searching for new trades to deploy their large vessels effectively on."
It noted Asia-Black Sea services seem like an obvious choice for deploying some of the ultra-large container ships that will become redundant in the Asia-North Europe trade, because the distance from Asia to the Black Sea is roughly the same as Asia to Italy and the average vessel size in the Asia-Black Sea trade is about 40 percent smaller than on the Asia-Europe services.
In addition, it pointed out countries around the Black Sea have "he largest economic growth rates on the European continent, and a combined population of over 200 million, which are rapidly becoming wealthier and demanding ever more consumer goods."
But SeaIntel said its analysis "shows that only Ambarli and Constanta currently have the operational capabilities to handle 10,000-TEU vessels, while Odessa will get the ability in the future, if the vessels can dock at two consecutive quays. The port productivity per TEU in the Black Sea ports is, however, only 0.3 TEU per minute, which is less than half of productivity in the North European ports. It must therefore be concluded that the Black Sea ports in the near future, will not be ready to handle 10,000-TEU or larger vessels, as the vessels would spend a disproportional large time in port."
Earlier this week the members of the G6 alliance said they will modify their network between the Far East and the Black Sea effective from at the end of August, discontinuing its ABX service, but maintaining port coverage in the Black Sea with a new dedicated feeder service with a connection via Port Said. Meanwhile, OOCL said it will introduce a service connecting Asia, the East Mediterranean, and Black Sea next month, using Zim's EMX service. - Chris Dupin